A chart of the wester coast of Africa from the eleventh degree……

Title

A chart of the wester coast of Africa from the eleventh degree……

Description

Karte zeigt die Küste von Süd-Westafrika mit teilweise Kongo (Stadt Pointe-Noire), Angola, Namibia und Südafrika mit dem Kap der Guten Hoffnung. Des weiteren eine Titelkartusche und eine Windrose.

c. 1739

Artist

Maurepas, Comte de (1701-1781)

Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, comte de Maurepas ( 1701 – 1781) was a French statesman and Count of Maurepas. Skilled in military and naval strategy, Maurepas enabled the French navy to regain previously lost prestige and France was once again recognized as a maritime power. One way that he improved the French reputation was by focusing on the defense of France's sprawling empire in the New World, especially in the 1730s and 1740s

Historical Description

Angola is a west-coast country of south-central Africa. It is the seventh-largest country in Africa, bordered by Namibia to the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Zambia to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Although inhabited since the Paleolithic Era, what is now Angola was molded by Portuguese colonisation. It began with, and was for centuries limited to, coastal settlements and trading posts established starting in the 16th century. In the 19th century, European settlers slowly and hesitantly began to establish themselves in the interior. The Portuguese colony that became Angola did not have its present borders until the early 20th century because of resistance by groups such as the Cuamato, the Kwanyama and the Mbunda. Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão reached the area in 1484. The previous year, the Portuguese had established relations with the Kongo, which stretched at the time from modern Gabon in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. The Portuguese established their primary early trading post at Soyo, which is now the northernmost city in Angola apart from the Cabinda exclave. Paulo Dias de Novais founded São Paulo de Loanda (Luanda) in 1575 with a hundred families of settlers and four hundred soldiers. Benguela was fortified in 1587 and became a township in 1617.